Whity

I barely got through this movie, this kind of half-western half super-dark satire on racism and slavery that makes Bamboozled look like Fraggle Rock... So why the high rating? Possibly just because there's nothing else quite like it. It's about a slave, dubbed Whity by his master/family for his propensity for 'sucking up' (Günter Kaufmann, a frequent actor in Fassbinder's stockade of sorts, who I still can't tell whether or not he's actually a good actor or appears to be so), and his master (Ron Randell) and his family, which includes a wife and two children, one retarded and one homosexual, and there are sometimes very strange requests or orders- like killing other members of the family for things like obvious adultery or the murder by the master of said adulterer (I think that's what happened at one point).

One of the things about the movie that's just totally weird, and yet very weirdly effective, is that the slave owner and family have white make-up put over their already white faces (again, the inverse of Bamboozled, only here not so smug about it being "hey, it's satire!"), and that all of the characters- save maybe for a few minor characters or a supporting one like the saloon singer who falls for Whity- have an affected way of speaking, deliberate like everyone is under some strange spell. What is it all a symbol for? I think, maybe, that racism is so ugly and horrible a thing one can barely ever capture how it affects everyone around them, white or black (the only somewhat down-to-earth figure, Whity's mother played very convincingly by Elaine Baker, is all too brief in the mix for a reason). Fassbinder uses the backdrop of the old west, of a kind of fragmented version of it (he uses sets from other movies, intentionally I'd wager), where this savage but almost meditative story can take place.

Whity shouldn't be something to see right away if you're just getting into Fassbinder - since I'm one of them, I can attest to it being a difficult film - but there's a power about it, some really unique pull to it in some scenes (watch when Whity asks the retarded boy to come over the comb the horse, very tense, erotically so but cruel), that it's hard not to find it at some point if you become an admirer of the prolific German's oeuvre. I'm not even sure I would watch it again, but I know I didn't exactly regret the chance at witnessing risky art.

Rarely screened, forgotten by even the most devoted admirers of Fassbinder, _Whity_ is nonetheless a crucial film in Fassbinder's own development as a film-artist. For one, the style of the film marks Fassbinder's turn away from his earlier, Neo-realistic efforts (notably _Katzelmacher_ and _Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?_) and turn towards the flamboyant, melodramatic form favored by him until his untimely death in 1982. Melodrama turns out to be the best possible style for the film's story, which chronicles the fall of the seigniorial Nicholson family in the Mexican 19th century. Indeed, this film should be seen for no other reason than the inescapable weirdness one feels in watching German actors play Mexicans in the Old West. It's like seeing Peter Lorre playing John Wayne: ridiculous, if only it weren't so creepy. "Decadent" and "dysfunctional" are words redefined by the Nicholson family: the patriarch, Ben Nicholson, is remote and cruel, the wife a nymphomaniac, the older son a flaming homosexual, and his brother a severely retarded adolescent. Then there's Whity, the ironically named mulatto slave of the Nicholson family, an inadvertent focus point of each family member's perverse obsessions. It is this mutual obsession with Whity (an obsession shared by the viewer by film's end) which allows Fassbinder to explore the themes which were to comprise his greatest contribution to film's development as a medium, including: dominance and submission, the role of the Other, sexuality, the doppelganger, the economy of familial relationships, and the obstacles fate puts in the way of consumating love. These issues gain complexity when one considers that the slave Whity is played by Fassbinder's then-lover, Gunther Kaufmann. Given this, what is the viewer to make of such stylistic scenes as when Whity is disciplined by his master, while the other family members garrulously look on--knowing that Fassbinder himself is also watching from his director/dictator's chair? (The complex inter-relationships of Fassbinder and the actors during the filming of _Whity_ were later chronicled by Fassbinder in his film _Beware of a Holy Whore_, which is based on the real-life melodrama that occurred _off_ the set of _Whity_.) If nothing else, _Whity_ deserves to be included in with the other Fassbinder films, such as _Despair_, which are so justly celebrated for their psychological depth and complexity. Beyond this, two aspects of Fassbinder's technique in making _Whity_ deserve special mention. The first is that in _Whity_, one of the first of his films to employ a half-way reputable color process, Fassbinder shows himself to be a great colorist in the tradition of Delacroix, bathing the eyes with the lushest oranges, browns, and reds to be seen this side of a sunset. The palette is one that seems to have existed in film only in the late 60s and early 70s, finding similarly gorgeous expression in Truffaut's _Fahrenheit 451_, Boorman's _Point Blank_, Godard's _La Chinoise_, and Nicolas Roeg's early efforts (_A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to The Forum_ , _Performance_, _Walkabout_, _Don't Look Now_, _The Man Who Fell to Earth_). The second aspect of noteworthy technique is a camera movement that truly has no precedent in film history--a fact which makes the obscurity of _Whity_ among film scholars all the more remarkable. The best example of the technique occurs in a scene in which Ben Nicholson reads his last will and testament to the silent family members surrounding him. During an unbroken ten-minute take, the actors remain virtually motionless, as if posed in some Rembrantian tableaux (and in this way recalling Dreyer's _Day of Wrath_). Against this stasis, the camera pans slowly from one family member to another, following their own sight-lines, as if the camera were recording the trace of their attention. For ten minutes the camera repeats this zig-zag path with methodical precision, while psychedelic, trance-inducing music drones in the background. The greatest merit of the technique (seen also in an equally static scene between Whity and the retarded son in the horse barn) is that it allows the viewer time enough to meditate on the relationships among the characters involved in the tableaux--in this case most profoundly on the relationships of power among family members. It's as if Fassbinder, using film technique, took a snapshot of the family, and then spent ten minutes tracing out with his finger exactly who is dominated by whom, who resents the domination, who is perceiving whom and how, and so on. The technique, which to my knowledge Fassbinder never used again to such great effect, can only be seen as the great innovation that it is, and as such, a powerful tool for the revelation of psychological truth. However, let none of these deeper concerns eclipse the enjoyment to be had watching this bizarre, Teutonic _Dallas_ unfold. Like the best moments in a Warhol film, the high camp of _Whity_ is very, very funny to watch--certainly because it is absurd, which is not to say it is without profound meaning.

When is a Western not really a Western? When it’s directed by Fassbinder! WHITY is only my sixth film from the so-called German wunderkind: I admire Fassbinder for his prolific and versatile output, though I’ve yet to be won over completely by a film of his; frankly I was hoping this would prove to be the one – but, as it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong! For the record, I’ve got four more titles from him to watch: still, considering my dismal experience with WHITY (especially since I had fully expected it to be the most accessible of the lot!), I don’t know when I’ll muster the courage to get to them now…even if DESPAIR (1978) is a reasonably enticing title, given the participation of Dirk Bogarde and the Vladimir Nabokov source.

To be fair, the Western ambiance is delivered in spades throughout. The film was stunningly shot in Widescreen – by Michael Ballhaus (later a valued collaborator of Martin Scorsese) – in Almeria, location site of many a Spaghetti Western. It generally has the right feel for time and place with regards to settings and wardrobe, while the all-important score is highlighted by a decidedly infectious riff. Even so, the repertoire of English-language ballads (the bulk of the film, of course, is in German) allotted to chanteuse/prostitute Hanna Schygulla – not to mention her own affected delivery – is inappropriately modern and comes across as unintentionally laughable! Schygulla was a fixture in Fassbinder’s work; the film also features Ron Randell (best-known, if at all, for playing Christ’s attorney[!] in Nicholas Ray’s KING OF KINGS [1961]) and Ulli Lommel (who later graduated to directing himself, notably TENDERNESS OF THE WOLVES [1973] and THE BOOGEYMAN [1980]).

The overriding pretentiousness at work here is palpable above all in the film’s lethargic, indeed deadly, pace (never have I seen a movie in which the characters moved more s-l-o-w-l-y!). Besides, it isn’t helped by unsympathetic (even annoying) characters – mostly members of a dysfunctional family (and particularly the pasty-faced, frizzy-haired sons of landowner Randell) – indulging in all manners of transgressions (from such commonly-depicted capital sins as greed, lust and murder down to nymphomania, masochism, interracial relationships and incest!). In the midst of all this is an unsavory gay subtext which, inevitably, seems to be on the agenda of virtually all directors so inclined in real-life (but becoming obviously more pronounced in the liberalized modern cinema)!

The plot, for what it’s worth, is reminiscent of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s THEOREM (1968) – coincidentally another gay parable – as the life of everyone involved is influenced in some way by the household’s black manservant (the character bears the ironic titular nickname but is also curiously underwritten and inexpressive), who’s actually the fruit of Randell’s illicit affair with his frumpy colored maid! The fact that each, in turn, pleads with him to slay the other could have turned this into a pointed black comedy – but the film is simply too labored and deliberately self-conscious for the subtlety intrinsic to such refined treatment...

In the end, one should note that 1971 saw a boom of arty Westerns with other such offerings as Alexandro Jodorowsky’s EL TOPO, Peter Fonda’s THE HIRED HAND and Robert Altman’s McCABE AND MRS MILLER. As for WHITY (whose shooting, by the way, inspired Fassbinder’s own BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE [1971]), I had owned the Fantoma DVD – which includes an Audio Commentary from Ballhaus and Lommel – for quite a while before actually sitting down to view it. I’d purchased the disc through the company’s own website during a sale but, as I said, could only manage to find a slot for it in my hectic/eclectic schedule after having enjoyed a couple of equally stylized (but far more satisfying) Spaghetti Westerns – DEATH SENTENCE (1968) and YANKEE (1966) – earlier this week.

Fassbinder's western with spoken lines in German. An interesting film of Fassbinder because you get to peer into his personality and his intricate knowledge of his actors' psyche. Gunther Kaufman on screen plays the mulatto character Whity, whose mother is black and biological father is possibly his master. Whity offers himself to be whipped in the place of his master's son--a commendable Christian action. Decades later after Fassbinder had died, Kaufman goes to prison to protect his own wife, who was suffering from cancer, for a crime she had perpetrated. Did Fassbinder see this hidden characteristic in Kaufman's character?

The tale is sewn together with negative characters: Whity's masters' family all who wish to kill his master, a prostitute who lies to the law to protect his master from a murder she has witnessed, a gunslinger (Fassbinder) who hates blacks, Whity's master who lies about his medical condition, etc. Everybody would like to kill or lie.

The end itself is spectacularly negative--something close to Nietzsche's philosophy. Visually powerful end, that beats logic for survival, as we understand it.

Ballhaus' cinematography and Kurt Raab's creditable production design are commendable. Syberberg's actor Harry Baer in two of Syberberg's best films (Hitler; and Ludwig) has a minor role.

I recently watched the DVD of "Whity", Fassbinder's German Western. After seeing it, the fact that all the character's speek German despite the Spanish locations didn't seem out of tune at all with the overall movie.

For the record the commentary on the DVD is one of the greatest I've heard. However, Ulli Lommel and Michael Ballhaus both agree that this is Fassbinder's 5th movie. That would mean this amazingly photographed, sweeping epic--which boasts by far the best production designs of any of Fassbinder's first movies--followed the crude looking excruciating black comedy "Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?" I find this a bit hard to believe. Judging by the fact that Lommel and Ballhaus make a few factual mistakes (this was not the first Fassbinder movie with Günther Kaufmann, "Gods of the Plague" was), maybe they're a bit off. My guess is probably number 8 or 9. If it is number 5, that's amazing.

Anyhow, this is easily the most polished of Fassbinder's first movies. It's also probably up there with "The American Soldier" in terms of perverse bizarreness. You'll find lots of flaggelating, KKK, incestual undertones, homoerotism, prostitutes, bleached eyebrows and eyelashes, bad hair, greenish-white cakey makeup, and some severe mental retardation all in these frames. The odd thing is, none of it seems to be played for laughs, which only adds to the perversity. Fassbinder thought this movie was so personal to him that he didn't want anyone else to see it, or any movie theaters to show it.

Also of note, the ending of this movie is highly unusual for Fassbinder. No suicide, no crying, no corpses? I guess for the final shot, Fassbinder had his convertable engine running so he could drive off forever into the distance the second it was completed. It just seems directors don't have that type of dedication or personal anguish attached to their movies anymore. All the more reason to keep watching Fassbinder's I guess.